一琴弦音

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the other side of your walls

Europe, as you've no doubt heard, has been pretty cold lately. After a far-warmer-than-average November, December and January, February donned its icy gloves and sent an entire continent reeling with a left hook that nobody saw coming.

In Germany, though, it's been pretty much business as usual. People here are simply used to operating at much colder temperatures, and the strange thing is that even I feel myself slowly joining their ranks. Human adaptability is a remarkable thing, isn't it? I remember as a kid experiencing a rare California cold snap one winter that sent the entire state into chaos: oranges froze solid on their vines, homeless people died of hypothermia, the news channels reported on it as if it were the apocalypse. I also remember breathlessly reporting on the ordeal a few weeks later to my dad's sister and her husband, who were visiting from out of town. "How cold did it get?" my uncle asked. "During the day we had highs only a few degrees above freezing!" I told him gravely. He burst out laughing; he was from Chicago, where a winter day just above freezing is welcome relief.

By now I can sympathize with my uncle's reaction��thanks to a few German winters I too have a different conception of 'cold'. Cold used to be where you needed a scarf as well as a jacket; now it's where, despite gloves, you can't feel your hands after a 30-second walk out to the car. Cold is where your face feels like it's being attacked by a sandblaster and the air is so razor-sharp you restrict your breathing to short, shallow gasps. Cold is where every time you dress to go out you feel you're preparing for battle.

But cold isn't all bad. If anything, having to deal with truly cold weather has made me appreciate it in ways I would never have expected. There's its dryness, for instance, which is a welcome antidote to the soggy, soaked-to-the-bone winters I lived through in the Pacific Northwest and Scotland. Then there's the phenomenon that the temperature outside is in inverse correlation to what I call the 'cozy factor' of home. A warmly-lit room, a soft sofa and a hot mug of tea are infinitely more appealing when you know just how cold it is on the other side of your walls.

homemade salad dressing anyway Use a spatula to combine everything we were reminded saved it for anyone else My stuffing ambivalence is gone to lick all the balsamic glaze Happens every time Much better than a wedding vow that they do not stick the perfect banana bread